I swallow and let go of the ball. “You want to bounce?”
Maisy blinks her brown eyes and makes a funny noise with her mouth. Sounds like a fart. It makes me laugh, and when I bounce her against me, she laughs with me.
“You’re a silly girl. You really must be my niece.” I keep bouncing her, and from the look on her face, I don’t think she’ll ever get tired of this.
When I turn a little so she can see the ocean, I see him.
Torrin’s watching me with an intensity that pulls my breath straight up out of my lungs. I want to look away because I think I know what’s going through his mind—in another life, under other circumstances, the baby laughing in my arms could have been ours.
When I smile at him, for the first time I’m met by something that looks almost like pain on his face. He turns away and wanders down to the water.
NOW THAT I’M outdoors, in the open, I can’t imagine crawling back inside my room and locking myself away from the world.
I’ve always loved the beach. Even the beaches up north that don’t know sunshine and blue skies the way the ones in the south do. The ones that are rocky and blustery and spend most days shrouded in gray.
I think, after everything, I love the beach even more now. And I love this day, with these people, shaping these memories.
We’re just about finished with the veggie burgers my dad grilled on his little charcoal grill when Mom gets that look on her face. I’ve seen it aimed my way a lot since coming home.
“Have you looked at the GED test dates and thought about registering for one yet?”
I lower the burger I’ve actually managed to eat half of. I think it’s the ocean air making me hungry, but there’s nothing like the pressure of picking-up-where-I-left-off to curb an appetite. “No, actually I haven’t.”
Torrin’s beside me on the beach blanket, and he sets down his plate.
“When do you think you might get around to doing that?” Mom plays with the cap of her water bottle.
“Once I figure out how to be in public without passing out, melting down, or blowing up. Once I figure out how to quiet my head enough to think about literature and algebra. Once I find a tutor who can catch me up on everything I missed and everything I’ve probably forgotten.”
Mom waves at me. “Oh, Jade, you were an honors student. You’ll have no problem passing the GED.”
“Yeah, I was an honor’s student in high school. Ten years ago.” I tip the brim of the big hat Mom insisted I wear lower down on my forehead.
Torrin leans back and casually spreads his arms wide so one’s behind me. I don’t lean into it because I know I can’t with my family scattered around us, but I feel its support.
“You’re a smart girl.”
I look at her without blinking. “No, Mom, I’m not. Smart girls don’t get fooled into walking right up to strange men in vans. Smart girls don’t stay trapped in a house when . . .” The words lodge in my throat, creating a barricade. They still don’t know. But Torrin does.
“You need to start moving on, sweetie. You can’t stay trapped in your room, breaking out for occasional visits to the beach. It isn’t healthy.”
Her voice isn’t unkind, and I know she’s saying it because she wants the best for me, but she can’t understand. She can’t comprehend how trivial a GED and college degree seem to me when I’m struggling to roll out of bed each morning. Why should I care about what I’m going to do with my life if I can’t muster up the will to live more moments than not?
“Why? Why isn’t it healthy?” Torrin’s voice cuts into the conversation as he leans forward to look at my mom. His arm stays planted behind me. “My god, Eleanor, do you realize what your daughter went through? She didn’t wander off at the mall and get lost for a few minutes—she was kidnapped. By a sick, sick person. Who kept her chained up and made her pretend to be his daughter.” His voice is growing, and I’m glad Sam and Patrick are letting Maisy kick at the waves so they don’t have to witness this. “There is no protocol for this. There is no right or wrong way to behave after something like that. So why don’t you stop telling her what she should be doing and what she should be feeling and just listen to what she’s telling you?” Torrin settles his hands on his hips, grasping to collect his emotions.
Dad stays quiet in his chair, chewing on what’s left of his hamburger. That means he’s with Torrin. He’d never come out and say it—I still see his fists form when Torrin comes within a body-length of me—but his silence is support enough.
Mom continues to twist the cap of her water bottle, but she stays quiet.
Torrin suddenly pulls his sweatshirt over his head and drops it into my lap. He’s shirtless, and when he marches toward the water, I’m glad Mom insisted I wear dark glasses. No one can see the way I’m looking at him. I’m thankful for them when he looks over his shoulder and his eyes find me so he doesn’t see the way I’m looking at him.
His dark hair bouncing with his pace, his back familiar and foreign at the same time, his eyes trying to tell me the same thing I’ve ignored up to this moment.
I don’t realize I’m standing until I slip the hat from my head and drop it on the blanket. My sunglasses follow, then I shrug out of the long cotton dress.
“Where are you going?” Mom’s voice is worried as I step out of the dress onto the sand.